By Nicole Veneto

True to its name, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is bigger and crazier than anything Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol have ever conceived of, a feat of gonzo filmmaking that would make Werner Herzog sweat.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, directed by Matt Johnson. Now touring across the United States and (hopefully) coming to theaters February 13, 2026.

Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol prepare for a stunt that’ll put Tom Cruise to shame in Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. Photo: NEON

It’s the Toronto premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Matt Johnson has blinded himself.

His best friend, co-conspirator, and bandmate Jay “Bird” McCarrol warned him about sitting too close to the television. Alas, Matt was so engrossed in marathoning the original trilogy that, when the credits rolled on Return of the Jedi, he couldn’t tell if the lights were still on. In true Matt and Jay fashion, it never occurs to the pair to ask for an assistive device so Matt can enjoy the movie. So Jay does the next best thing — he starts narrating the movie out loud.

Moments after Matt shrieks “NO!” upon learning that Luke Skywalker has vanished, a theater employee kicks them, their hidden cameraman Jared Raab, and a couple of paid actors posing as angry audience members out of the screening.

This is the exact moment (S1E4, “The Blindside”) when I fell in love with Nirvanna the Band.

Not to be confused with the other Nirvana, Toronto’s cult comedy duo Nirvanna the Band began with a web series by director Matt Johnson and composer Jay McCarrol in 2007 before airing for two seasons on Viceland from 2017 to 2018. Part mockumentary, part guerilla filmmaking, part Fair Use test case, the show follows Johnson and McCarrol as fictionalized and incredibly stupid versions of themselves as they scheme to play a show at the Rivoli, a small Toronto venue known for giving alt-comedy acts like The Kids in the Hall their start. Playing the Rivoli isn’t especially difficult but, because Matt and Jay collectively possess the intelligence of a 12-year-old boy, an otherwise simple goal spirals into elaborate publicity stunts like staging a bank robbery and stealing a map from the Royal Ontario Museum, often to the bewilderment of unaware (and very real) bystanders. As of 2025, the Rivoli has eluded them for 17 years.

Which brings us to Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. Matt Johnson’s post-BlackBerry blank check cash-in is so technically ambitious, so eager to infringe on copyright law that, at one point, Johnson looks at the camera and warns of the potential lawsuits they’ll have to sort through. This legal undertaking has been taken up by NEON, which is currently touring the film with Johnson and McCarrol across the States ahead of a slated 2026 release. True to its name, The Movie is bigger and crazier than anything Johnson and McCarrol have ever conceived of, a feat of gonzo filmmaking that would make Werner Herzog sweat. That it’s also the funniest and most endearing testament to the power of male friendship ever put to screen is an accomplishment as impressive as, I don’t know, skydiving off the CN Tower and parachuting into a Blue Jays game.

So begins Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie’s first livewire act. Well, sort of. Matt and Jay’s latest gambit for the Rivoli inevitably fails to go according to plan: the SkyDome closes before they can drop in, though the real Matt and Jay do succeed in sneaking parachutes and wire cutters past security. A new rift develops in their long-tested friendship. Matt contrives another harebrained scheme and accidentally retrofits their RV into an Orbitz-fueled time machine. A fed up Jay tries to sneak off to Ottawa for an open mic opportunity in the RV. Per Back to the Future rules, driving at 88 miles per hour sends them back to 2008, where a run-in with their younger selves alters the future, resulting in Jay becoming a world famous solo artist and Matt a competent (but best friend-less) drummer. To fix the rift they’ve caused in both their friendship and the space-time continuum, Matt and Jay will have to pull off their greatest plan yet — completely rip off the climax of Back to Future with an extension cord and the foreknowledge that lightning will strike the CN Tower just past 9 p.m. that night.

A very lively Johnson and McCarrol take audience questions at Coolidge Corner Theatre after riffing on daylight savings and dressing too casually for a nice hotel dinner. (Photo: Nicole Veneto)

If you couldn’t tell already, The Movie plays fast and loose with copyright infringement. Half the joy of Nirvanna the Band is how Johnson and McCarrol manipulate pop culture through legally dubious means, part and parcel of Johnson’s “shoot first, ask later” approach to filmmaking. But there’s a newfound importance to pilfering from blockbuster franchises in the age of reboots, remakes, and cinematic universes. (In the wake of an incoming Netflix-Warner Brothers merger, any unlicensed use of brand-managed IP feels like cinematic jihad.) In lifting entire plot points from Zemeckis’s time-travel trilogy, Johnson and McCarrol’s flagrant disregard for the sanctity of copyright becomes the narrative means through which The Movie sets up several technically ambitious set pieces it then proceeds to pull off. There’s no such thing as miracles, but a convincing sleight of hand from a resourceful director is the closest thing to one.

The most impressive magic act in The Movie has nothing to do with the CN Tower, the Lynchian characters inhabiting Dundas Square, or Johnson wandering into a press conference outside of Drake’s mansion. It’s the editing. I had the opportunity to ask Johnson and McCarrol during the after-screening Q&A the most pressing iteration of “how the fuck did they do that?” on my mind: what technical and VFX elements were used during the 2008 segment — specifically how did they manage to fake their interactions with their younger selves? When Johnson explained that no post-production VFX was used to achieve the illusion (read: ZERO digital de-aging) I thought he was pulling my leg. The true heroes of The Movie are editors Curt Lobb and Robert Upchurch, who combed through hundreds of hours of unused DV footage shot for the web series and seamlessly integrated it into the film for Johnson and McCarrol to write/act around.

There’s a non-zero chance I’ll never get to see this movie again. NEON may be a distribution powerhouse with six Palmes d’Or and last year’s Best Picture winner in its catalog, but CEO Tom Quinn spent much of 2025 shopping the company around to potential buyers, including former Universal president and COO Ronald Meyer. Depending on how things shake out in an increasingly grim media landscape, where corporate monopolies and neo-vertical integration run rampant, that 2026 release date may go unfulfilled. But that would severely underestimate the tenacity Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol have always possessed to get the unthinkable done. (They also have good lawyers.) Nothing — not copyright, not a lack of permits, not even the fabric of time — can get between two aging millennials turning their love of pan-and-scan VHS tapes into movie magic.

Nicole Veneto graduated from Brandeis University with an MA in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, concentrating on feminist media studies. Her writing has been featured in MAI Feminism & Visual Culture, Film Matters Magazine, and Boston University’s Hoochie Reader. She’s the co-host of the podcast Marvelous! Or, the Death of Cinema. You can follow her on Letterboxd and her podcast on Twitter @MarvelousDeath.